


The Groom’s Guide to Reception and Reconciliation

by CryingaboutPercy



Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Infrequent canon typical thoughts of suicide and self harm, M/M, but nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26095636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryingaboutPercy/pseuds/CryingaboutPercy
Summary: Henry Montague will be twenty-three in three months which means it’s been close to five years since Percy Newton, his best and only friend, exited his life completely. Not entirely coincidentally, it’s been about just as long since he gave up on any notion of living a life outside of his father’s control.That fate will be sealed in twelve months time when Monty marries a woman who he doesn't hate but who he certainly doesn't love. All he has to do is accept it and keep going.Which would be one hell of a lot easier if his father hadn’t hired one Percy Newton to be his wedding planner.
Relationships: Felicity Montague & Henry "Monty" Montague, Felicity Montague & Percy Newton, Henry "Monty" Montague & Scipio, Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton, Percy Newton & Georgie, Percy Newton & Scipio
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	The Groom’s Guide to Reception and Reconciliation

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This chapter was originally twice this length but I decided to cut it in too. Since the second chapter is mostly done it shouldn't take long! If you want you can find me on Tumblr at gentlemans-guide-to-books and akaname14 on twitter

London is not an entirely unfamiliar environment to wake up in. I know the sounds of traffic and the ring of shopfront bells at least as well as one must in order to sleep through them over a morning. Though admittedly, I might have a harder time of it if I weren’t a well known heavy sleeper. After all, I did grow up primarily on the quiet side of Cheshire, with the exception of the time I spent boarding at Eton—an environment which had been notably closer to London, both in general proximity and in hubbub.

Lesson number one of an ex-Etonian: No matter the restrictions in place there is only so much a Housemaster can do to quiet a board of fifty teenage boys bored half to death. And can I just say, I had contributed my fair share and more to said hubbub until they chucked me like last week's leftovers, a fact that I maintain pride in. A fact I would maintain more pride in had I managed to graduate.

All that said, my familiarity with the patterns of London living, in reality, comes from many a weekend visit with the family. Back then my sister Felicity and I had been occupied mainly with window shopping and lengthy museum slogs.

I had much preferred the former but Felicity being Felicity always took ten times longer reading all the plaques at the museums than any reasonable person could stand and longer still the time she brought that friend of hers along. Still, there had always been something worth enjoying about my time here. I had appreciated the options both in pastimes and in eye candy— the young men in London always dressed much nicer than back home and there were far more women in general than I had the chance to admire during the long month spent at single-sex schools.

The shift in my later years into more business related ventures to the city was a notably less enjoyable experience and the decision to move here had not exactly been one of desire. I console myself, if you can even call it consoling, that there are far worse places in the world to be settling in for a lifetime of monotony and misery. If I’m bound for that outcome anyway, I might as well choose London to be my final resting place and go down on my own accord. There’s at least a bridge and plenty of tall buildings to jump off if I become well and truly desperate.

On this morning, the first of April and my first day as an official full time denizen of the crown city, I wake to the sound of a neighbours door slamming from my open window and, predictably, to the worst hangover of my life— so far anyway. Let’s not rule out any future milestones this early In life.

 _Maybe_ , I consider to myself as my god-awful alarm tone sends jolts of pain deep down to my very core, _the true sign of “manhood” is that you can no longer drink into the wee hours of the morning without reaping the unbearable consequences of a good night_. Only that would mean I’ve been cheated because last night wasn't even a _good_ night. It had been stomach turning at worst, tolerable at best and even that had only been the case thanks to the drinking.

My only notable concession of fault on this matter is that I probably could have planned it better, but I’m not known for my forethought. I’m sure last night I had most likely—and I say most likely as I don’t actually remember—weighed my options and thought I was making the best decision at my disposal. Those options being to spend an agonising three hour cab trip unbearably sober, or risk the migraine in exchange for an escape from the ever growing dread in the pit of my stomach. Maybe if my father hadn’t insisted I commute at night to avoid traffic into London it would have been more tolerable. Really, it’s just as much his fault if you think about it. 

Now that I am thinking about it I still don't know why he had been so insistent on that. It’s not like he had been in the car with me. I’m half convinced he just didn’t want to see me so he had me shipped in once he already had an excuse to be in bed. Not that I wanted to see him last night anyway so I guess I’ll count it as a win-win.

As much as I want to though, I can’t blame anyone but myself for the disaster of a decision it was to keep drinking in my room once I finally arrived at my new abode around eleven at night, when I should have just gone to sleep. I’d already been considerably piss drunk by that point, just barely together enough to bring the last of my belongings in, so my decision making skills were not in use at that point. I figure I should count my luck that I didn’t make enough of a commotion to wake my father upstairs.

_What did I do with those empty bottles anyway?_

One piece of advice I would give to anyone planning on getting pissed in the middle of moving to a new city is make sure you know which bag you put your aspirin in. It takes me a whole ten minutes to find mine in a duffel bag half under my bed and that is entirely too long to be doing anything with a head as sore as mine. It’s a wonder I manage to down some pills before I either throw up or pass out. Good thing I don’t because my father coming into my room without knocking is bad enough when I’m just lying in bed trying to convince the room to stop spinning. Had he come in to find me passed out in my own vomit I’d have been kicked to the street before I even opened my eyes. I could kiss my way of life goodbye.

Luckily I had manage to make myself look at least marginally composed by the time the world comes to greet me in the form of my fathers unattractive frown-lines, and I only feel the normal amount like I want to throw up when he tells me to be ready and in the office in ten minutes.

Despite my best effort it takes me fourteen minutes to make myself presentable enough to face the man who raised me but that’s still better time than I’m known for. A Monty ten minutes is usually closer to half an hour. Once I feel enough like a human being again, I head up the stairs towards the office.

The flat is old but it’s nice enough to meet Father’s standards of living. I suppose the proper word for it is historical. Traditional and upheld—It’s tiny compared to the family home in Cheshire but being a London flat it’s likely comparably expensive for the square footage. It’s been my father's home away from home for most of my life. The place he stays when he is in London on business and the place I have stayed on multiple occasions throughout my years. Down stairs where I spent last night is where Felicity and I had slept on our visits to London. It was the only time we ever shared a room and we had hated every moment of it. In addition to the bedroom, smallest of the two in the flat, the ground floor has a joint kitchen and dining room, and a small bathroom. Upstairs is the office and the master bedroom, complete with the most extravagant ensuite you could possibly fit into the space.

That master bedroom, as well as the rest of the flat, is going to be mine as soon as Father goes back home. Usually I’d be pleased as punch about that arrangement but it’s all overshadowed by the depressing reality of why this is all happening. 

As I’m making my painful drag up the stairs toward the office my phone buzzes in my hand to punctuate that agonising thought.

Reminder: Wedding Planner - 10:15am.

If my stomach wasn’t already in my kneecaps it certainly is now. There, or in my feet.

The reality of my situation is that I’m in London not to spread my wings and be independent, or to make eyes at all the pretty people, but to begin my life as a monogamous, soon-to-be-married man. Today I meet with a wedding planner because in a little less than a year I am going to be married. 

I am getting married.

_Oh gods, I’m getting married._

The office door is open when I make it to the second floor of the flat. I’ve barely even found my footing before I hear my father from behind his desk.

“For God’s sake, Henry, fasten your belt.”

Off to a great start.

I glance down to see that I did, in fact, forget to fasten my belt and it is hanging loose at the front from the loops of my trousers. I want to tell him I would have done it up before I left anyway—and I would have because I _do_ have pride in my appearance—so I really don’t see the problem, but I don’t fancy the idea of being yelled at right now given the unpleasant throbbing still occupying most of my skull. The easiest thing to do is just fasten my belt and bite my tongue.

Is it entirely too early to be wanting something to drink?

“I hope you intend to make a decent impression while here. Need I remind you of my expectations?”

“No,” I say far too quickly. Father raises an eyebrow pointedly at me and I tack on. “You need not. Remind me. Consider me reminded.”

“Right.” He’s not even looking up from his computer which gets my goat. He’s the one who wanted to talk to me, you’d think he’d bother to look at me more than the glance it took him to notice my unfastened belt. And I get the nagging feeling that he doesn’t believe me in the slightest when I say I don’t need reminding. No surprise there, he never does when it comes to assurances of my character. I would be offended at that too but I don’t think I’ve actually given him too many reasons to believe in me. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting though. “I don’t mean it lightly when I say my standards are set high.”

“I know.” I know better than anyone. If there’s one thing to know about my dear old dad it’s that his standards are set about as high as the Eiffel tower. The room feels tense so I continue with a put-on casual tone. “I can't believe it’s time to meet the wedding planner already! Who knew it takes a whole year to plan a wedding? It’s just a party.”

“A very serious, very complicated party with likely over two-hundred guests.” Says father which is a disappointingly serious answer to my attempt at lighthearted conversation.

“Right—sorry, did you say _two-hundred?_ ” I gawk.

“At least.”

“I can't even name two hundred people!” I can’t think where this number has come from. I’m not exactly swimming in extended family members, or friends for that matter. 

“You had better start memorising the guest list then. There are a lot of important associates who will no doubt be attending and who would be offended to not receive an invitation.” Father glances at me like the thing he’s just said is an entirely reasonable request. I immediately regret wishing he’d look at me. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” I concede. Any objection will be entirely dismissed anyway so there's not much of a point in trying. “I just don’t see why we need to make a big thing of it, is all.”

“And what would you have us do instead?” 

“I don’t know, something small?” The way he looks at me makes me feel small. Small and stupid—which are two things I know I have no reason to be feeling other than that being what father wants me to feel. “Neither Jeanne nor I particularly enjoy those types of parties, you know.” 

“I do know. You both have a bad habit of abandoning them prematurely and irresponsibly. If you were thinking of absconding from your own wedding early you’d best reconsider. I am not facilitating so many guests from abroad for you to shuck your duties.”

Jeanne Le Brey, my affianced, is from Paris. Yet until just now the idea that the entirety of her guest list will be coming in from France has entirely escaped my mind. That adds a whole other unfortunate layer to just how many people it’s predicted will attend. I hope I’m not expected to speak French at my own bloody wedding. I’m not that good at it.

“Duties? What duties will I have at my _own_ wedding?”

“Need I remind you, Henry, that this is the first project I’m allowing you to manage on your own. You are the host and the representative of our family and our business at this event.”

“Yes, right, but I’m fairly certain weddings aren’t meant to be about business.” 

Father sighs and I know he’s thinking that I’m an idiot or something similarly unflattering and I can't even argue it because he isn’t actually saying it out loud. I bristle. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here. Still, I hang my head and play it safe.

“Weddings are a business. Your fiancée’s guest list has a number of important contacts. You’d be remiss to forgo the opportunity to network for yourself. Not to mention our own connections you should be trying to reinforce seeing as you’ll be taking my place in London following the wedding.”

I could really do without that reminder on top of all these other unfortunate realities. Let me focus on one misery at a time, please.

“I really don't think weddings are a business, though.” It probably isn’t wise of me to disagree but I need to make a point at least. “I’m fairly certain you’re meant to invite friends to weddings, not business partners.”

“You’re free to invite any friends you wish, but we both know that list is nonexistent.”

I flinch. Okay, ouch. That was a low blow.

Father continues, either ignorant to the effect of his words or uncaring in the face of them. I’m betting on the latter. “Enough of that. Are you done mouthing off or are you that desperate to argue your childish position?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. You best be ready to leave soon or you’ll be late for your appointment and I expect you to be punctual regarding these matters. I chose this company on direct referral from an associate whose daughter had her wedding last year. We were only able to secure their employ because my associate had words with the owner and convinced him to fit us into their tight schedule. If you’re late or behave detestably, not only will you give them no reason to keep you as a client, but you will be directly insulting my associates. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Off with you, then.”

I nod and turn to leave so quickly a stranger would think I’d had a fire set under my feet. There are very few reliefs I feel in life that are more grand than the relief of being allowed to leave my Father’s company. 

“Hold on a moment.”

Nor any disappointment more grand than being called back to it.

I only half turn back to him, ready to make my escape the second he allows it—like a racehorse kicking at the gates. 

“Remember, I go back to Cheshire tomorrow morning. This wedding is your opportunity to prove that you’re mature enough to trust with this flat and with my business. This is your last chance.”

And with that final nail in my coffin, I am off.

Rather than stay in the flat with my father following that encounter, I decide to go and sit out on the curb once I’ve collected my things. There’s a cab booked for me soon anyway and I’d rather wait out in the sun than feel like I’m being watched around every corner of that place. I can barely stand to be within fifty metres of that man most days without feeling sick to my stomach or developing a completely not-alcohol related headache. Unfortunately for me, the past couple years of shadowing him and learning the ropes in order to take over for his business has meant I've had to spend far too long far too close. I may be dreading what life has in store but at the very least, Father will be in Cheshire for most of it.

I watch the cars drive past as I wait for my hands to stop that annoying trembling thing they tend to do after meeting with Father and for the headache that _was_ caused by excessive alcohol consumption to finally begin calling down. I can just about feel my fingertips again when my phone buzzes for a second time this morning. A text this time.

Jeanne: My father is being insufferable. 

I’ve met Jeanne’s father more than once and never been thrilled by the experience, so I’m sure she’s not exaggerating in the slightest. Jeanne and I have a lot in common, really, especially in terms of family dramas. We have too much in common, it happens, to ever really fall in love with one another. We remind each other too much of ourselves and neither of us like ourselves enough for that to be a draw. It is enough that we get along splendidly in most other ways though.

The romantic in me is loathed to admit it, but I’m not even marrying for love. Jeanne isn’t a stranger by any means, but I don’t love her by any stretch of the imagination and that's no secret between us. She’d laugh at the idea of ever falling for me.

We initially told people we were dating to excuse being caught in the middle of an unfortunate and compromising romp together while we were both meant to be socialising with dusty old business men. The excuse had been that we’d been courting since our first meeting some weeks prior when in reality we had both been bored and had come up with a way to entertain ourselves. This was all during an extended business trip to Paris and as it turned out, that cover allowed us to get away with a lot more than just fooling around so we kept it going. 

I’d been nineteen when this began, and now I am some months shy of twenty-three. We saw one another once every few months to keep up appearance but the supposed long distance arrangement gave us both much desired freedom to explore other fancies back on home soil.

The marriage itself had been a rather heavy handed suggestion on our parents parts. When the subject was broached we’d both been made very aware of our options; Admit that we had no intentions of being together in any official format and lose the freedom our supposed relationship allotted us, or accept that our families would not drop the subject until we were wed to someone and give in to it being each other.

I never got down on one knee. I’m fairly sure the decision was made over text which is not very romantic.

Well, there are worse women I could be tied to, at least.

**-You are preaching to the choir, dear girl.**

Jeanne: I’m sure I am. Have you met with the planner yet?

**-No, I’m on my way now.**

Jeanne: Do be polite. I spoke to him on the phone to give my apologies and he was a perfect sweetheart. 

  
  


Jeanne will not be accompanying me on this trip to the wedding planners though I don't honestly know whether this meeting would be better or worse with her here. I wouldn’t have to do all the talking, but I’d also have to concern myself with behaving like an actual fiancé. Wondering won’t do me much good anyway as I’ll be finding out at the next meeting, since Jeanne will be making her move to London next week and will be at every subsequent appointment as well as in my home.

  
  


**-I am always polite.**

Jeanne: of course. Be appropriate, too. He sounded cute. 

**-That one may be harder but I’ll do my best.**

She doesn’t respond to that and I’m not surprised. Our conversations over text are never overly verbose. 

It did not take Jeanne long to figure out what is notably my worst kept secret— the fact that I fancy lads just as much as I do ladies. To her credit she hadn’t been bothered. In fact she is probably the one person in my life who has never made me feel lesser for who attracts me. For that reason she became my confidant, a role that had been distressingly lacking in my life for a whole year before we met. I offered her my ear as well, but she’s much more secretive than I am. I know that she has someone she’d rather be with, though I don't know his name. The most she’s told me of him is that he would never devote himself to her in any way that’s meaningful and that he’s not a person that she could ever bring home to appease her father. It’s a tragedy, and that's the biggest thing she and I have in common. 

Tragedy.

The cab I’d booked well in advance for today arrives exactly ten minutes late but I, or whoever it was I had actually make the arrangements, accounted for the possibility when making the booking. It’s not like I’m not trying to make good impressions—be on time and all that, regardless of Father’s belief that I am constantly and purposefully disorganised. I hop in the back of the cab once it pulls up and get settled in.

I can drive, by which I mean I do have a licence, but I don’t much enjoy it, especially not in London. Father says I’m too distractible and he might have a point but only because driving is boring. Practically mind numbing. Besides, there would be no place to park a car if I had my own. Father always has other people drive him so he never had a need for a carport and I am more than happy to keep up that tradition. 

I don’t always like taxicabs either though. Mostly I dislike them when the drivers talk to me and not because I’m a snob—because I rarely have anything worth saying to them. In conjuncture, unlike Father, I don’t have it in me to either tell them to leave me alone or to make myself appear generally intimidating enough to dissuade people from interacting with me in the first place. I’m much too small and soft in the face for that, such is my curse.

Today I get off easy though and I know the second I see the driver's sour face that he has just as little interest in talking to me as I have in talking to him. I love the old mean- looking ones.

The distance is short between the flat and the address to the wedding planner’s storefront, made into a ten minute trip only due to the inherent time consuming nature of navigating London streets at any time of day. We pass by the building I know my sister lives in about halfway into our commute and I nearly don't notice. I’ve only been to Felicity’s building once to be fair, the day she moved in when Mother had badgered me into delivering some of her things, and I never even went inside. Father’s condition on allowing Felicity to come to London to attend university—not that I really think he could have stopped her when she got her mind set on it—was that she live nearby to his flat. She’d complied, I assume, mainly out of convenience. 

She lives there now with Johanna Hoffman, a neighbour girl from back home that Felicity had an on and off friendship with growing up, and some other girl I have never actually been introduced to. I think I saw her that day I came to the building but she never expressed any interest in talking to me.

Felicity has it easy. Father all but ignores her and Mother only needles her over things like her manner of dress and her refusal to wear makeup. Which, may I just say, is a complete double standard. I wore nail polish one time when I was sixteen years old and my mother had acted as if I’d just shown her my bare arse when she saw it. I guess I should at least be grateful that she hadn’t told Father when I agreed to remove it. I can’t imagine his reaction would have been better than hers. 

I spend the rest of the trip staring out the window then back at my phone. I haven't got any headphones since my last pair got mangled in the packing process, so I can’t even listen to music. I’m not one of those people who can’t live without music which is the whole reason why I haven’t got a new set of earbuds yet, but at times like this some background noise doesn’t go unappreciated.

When I do hop out the Cab it’s in front of a small storefront. The kind that is clearly older than the business occupying it. It’s got glass display windows rimmed by old wooden frames that match the stain of the decorative arch that juts out a meter or so past the actual door. In the windows themselves are a set of photo displays showing off weddings and receptions that I imagine were the doing of these planners. I don’t really know enough about weddings to say if they are exceptionally beautiful, but they’re eye-catching. Notably there are a number of photos on display that feature same sex couplings which shouldn’t be so surprising given the legality, but I still double take when I notice.

Above the glass panelling and the arch but below the stone overcropping is a faded forest green sign that reads “Eleftheria Wweddings.” It’s an odd name. Maybe a family name? It’s certainly not Eenglish. In any case, I am clearly in the right place.

I should spout some poetics. It feels right given the turmoil currently taking its roots inside me. But I’m not a wordsmith and what is there even to say? It’s a wedding planner's office, not a gallows, even if I’m almost sure I’d be no more stressed if it were. 

_Chin up,_ I tell myself. _One quick appointment and the day is yours. There has got to be a pub near here somewhere._

I steel myself and push through the storefront door. Above me a bell rings and I am taken aback by the smell of vanilla and citrus inside.

Now—I am not a devoutly religious man, but I have to assume that the powers that be are testing me and my resolve, for the image I’m met with on the other side of the door is so beautiful I could almost be convinced that I’ve walked into a painting rather than a wedding planner’s office.

The front room itself is stunning enough, decorated like the interior of some fairy tale down to the swirling vine patterns in the plaster cornice. Everything is in varying tones of off-whites and pale yellows with rich red curtains and a vase of brilliant blue flowers sat atop the counter. 

I, however, am more interested in what happens to be behind that counter. There's a young man sitting on a swivel stool behind the front desk and he’s leaning entirely on one elbow over a stack of thick catalogues—his cheek is resting squished upon his open palm and the angle he’s leaned on gets me a nice look down his shirt. With the other hand he twirls a pen between long fingers like it's nothing at all. The man is gorgeous, with dark skin and fine features, not to mention the length of curls he has spilling over his shoulder where his hair tie has come loose—or maybe it’s intentionally tied low so not to ruin the shape.

I may have been able to handle seeing a stunning man working the shopfront. Jeanne even warned me of the possibility in a round-about way even if she had been mostly joking. I probably would have been a bit too polite but mostly appropriate, skirting far too close to flirtation for a soon-to-be married man but still chaste— if that were all that he was.

But luck is so rarely on my side and it can’t be as simple as a handsome stranger. That would be too easy.

As soon as the beautiful employee looks up from his stack of bridal magazines and I catch his eyes a realisation dawns over me in an instant. 

Close to nine million people live in London. That’s an incomprehensible number of people. More people than you could ever hope to know in a whole lifetime. I have been in this city of nearly nine million people for less than twenty-four hours, spoken to all of three people, and yet—

I know those eyes, and that nose, and that hair and that everything. I know it all so well that at one time I could close my eyes and see every detail of those features crystal clear in my mind's eye. 

Strike me dead, if it isn’t Percy Newton.

_Lord grant me strength._


End file.
